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Disarmament Documentation"Does Greenham Common Ring a Bell?": Secretary of State Powell interview with European journalists, May 17'Interview of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell by European journalists, Washington, D.C., May 17, 2002', US State Department, Office of the Spokesman, May 20. Question: Can I start on the issue of the treaty to be signed in Moscow, the nuclear arms reduction. It seems like it is something that the US wanted to do anyway. It's not very restrictive. It doesn't require any dismantling of arms. And the same for Russia... What was the point of having a treaty? Secretary Powell: The Russians wanted a treaty, and the reason they wanted a treaty was because, in fact, it does reduce the level of arms that both sides have immediately available under the deployed status. It says that at the end of this treaty period, both sides will not have more than between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads mated up with launchers. You may have lots of other warheads that are in various states of dismantlement, waiting to be dismantled, or being kept as reserves or test weapons, test items - I don't mean set them off, but to test them for reliability and safety. But in fact, both sides now for this treaty period of ten years will meet twice a year in an implementation committee to review the progress to going down. There will be visibility. There will be transparency. They will be able to watch what we are doing. We will be able to watch what they are doing. At the end of that treaty period, they will be able to come and look and will not find more than 1,700 to 2,200 warheads married up with launchers. What we actually do with our respective stockpiles will be national judgments. I expect that the Pentagon - and the Pentagon gets very nervous when I speak about the Pentagon because I used to be at the Pentagon - but I'm sure the Pentagon will do everything they can to reduce stockpiles because we don't want to spend more on these kinds of systems than we have to. The Russians also want to get their numbers down. But even if - let's say even if we had somehow made some deal on what to do with the stockpile warheads, the real constraint is the fact that we can only take apart so many of them a year, both we and the Russians. So even coming down under START rules and START I, not all of the warheads have been flushed out of the system because there is a limit on how fast you can do that. So I think to focus on, well, [the fact that] you're not destroying warheads is a misplaced focus because I can't destroy them even if I wanted to because of the rate at which I can destroy them and the number of warheads there are. You have to remember that when - to go back 12 years when I was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we were carrying around 12,000 warheads that could be mated up. And...[this treaty] doesn't mean we have to have 2,200 or we have to have 1,700. In fact, one can make the case the Russians may go even lower than that. It's a ceiling. So I think it is good. The reasons the Russians wanted it - and we agreed to it, as a symbol and as a sign of the closeness of our relationship and our willingness to be sensitive to their needs and their interests - they wanted this to be more than just a political declaration between two sitting Presidents. They wanted something that was between two governments and ratified by two parliaments and something that would outlive the two presidents and would show some predictability in the future. I think they got that. But I think they got something very important for them and it was consistent with our plans anyway, so I think it is a good deal. Question: Are there any allowances of what to do with the...[nuclear material] that ends up on the Russian side... Powell: Not under the terms of the treaty. But under many other protocols, yes. We have comprehensive threat reduction programs with them. We have Nunn-Lugar programs with them. We are working with our G-8 partners on a 10+10+10 deal that I think you are familiar with. We put up $10 billion and the European Union puts up $10 billion, and over a period of 10 years that money is used with Russian money that will reduce outside debt, and they will use that money for these kinds of things. So, yes. And as you know, there is another program that is still getting into place in a more effective way that takes nuclear fuel out of old weapons and uses them in American power plants. So, yes, but that does not have to be part of the treaty. That can be bilaterally - our two congresses working on it. And we are as interested in those programs as we have ever been. ... Question: The fact that Russia agreed, or has appeared to have acquiesced on NMD, which is what the bilateral commission seems - that's going to be set up - Powell: No, no, no. The bilateral implementation committee in this treaty has nothing to do with missile defense. ... No, the one thing the treaty did not do, nor will the political protocol, it will in no way inhibit our ability to pursue our missile defense programs. As you know, the ABM Treaty will lapse the middle of June - the 13th, if my memory serves me correctly. We look forward to working with the Russians as we move forward in missile defense to share our ideas with them, to hear their ideas and see in what ways we can collaborate or enter into cooperative arrangements. ... Question: Do you think that the resistance of some of your allies will be easier to [deal with now that a treaty has been agreed?] Powell: I don't know. You know last year we spent a good part of the year with everybody saying you cannot even imagine leaving the ABM Treaty; it is the centerpiece of the entire strategic concept. The Russians were saying, if you pull out this one key, the whole house will collapse on itself. And if you do this, the other terrible thing that will happen is you will launch an arms race that will just be so destructive, and the Chinese will do all sorts of horrible things. We listened. We listened carefully, because you have to take those kinds of concerns into account. But the more we talked to the Russians and the more we explained to them that we were talking about defending ourselves against a limited attack, not the kind of attack that they could mount against us; and as we talked to the Chinese and said, look, you have your rather modest-sized strategic force, you have never tried to make it larger, you've never grown it, and you have not aggressively tried to modernize it, although you'll have to modernize it - we understand that - but we are not going to do anything that's going to cause you to do anything other than what you're doing now. So watch us. So in the course of ten months we explained that to everybody. We consulted. We listened to the Russians and then we were not able to work out with the Russians a way for us to do our testing inside the confines of the ABM Treaty. The President sent me over in early December and I sat down with President Putin and told him that we had to move beyond this, get out of the treaty. I went and spoke to my German, French and Italian colleagues and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the Chancellor of Germany and the President and Prime Minister of France, and explained it to them. They all wished we weren't going to do this, but we did it. And as President Putin said to me when I got through with my briefing, he said, "Well, we think you're wrong. We wish you would not do this. But it will not change the strategic reality that we do not feel threatened," he said, "and we will continue moving ahead with our strategic dialogue. And he said, "The one good piece of news about this is that it will be behind us. We won't have to keep arguing about this." And then when we made our announcement and had choreographed with the Russians when we would make our announcement, Mr. Putin not only expressed his disappointment and said it would not change the strategic situation however, and they did not feel threatened, but he went one step beyond that; he announced his strategic reductions that same day on the 13th of December. So when you look back on it, the ABM Treaty is about to lapse, the geo-strategic situation is not collapsing, and no arms race is breaking out. So I still don't know why anybody, and especially my European colleagues, would find some horrible tragedy about to befall us because we left the ABM Treaty and we are pursuing missile defense. ... Question: Would you say that transatlantic relation is today in a difficult situation? There have been some disputes... Powell: [I]t is important for the United States to be a leader, but a leader needs fellow leaders, and a leader needs other people to work with us in grand coalitions. The President spends an enormous amount of time. I was late coming to see you because he was meeting with the president of Slovenia to talk about NATO expansion. The President spends an enormous amount of time on it as well. Now, what I will also say is that this is an Administration and this is a President that has strong beliefs and values. And when we have a strong belief, we will explain that strong belief to our friends. We will explain it to the world, and we will try to see if we can accommodate what we believe is the right thing to do with the interests of our other friends who might not agree with us. Just because we may not be able to reach an agreement doesn't mean that we don't care or that we are just going off on our own or we don't care what anyone else says. Frankly, the evidence is rather thin that we don't take concerns into account. The evidence is also there that sometimes when we strike what we believe is the correct position, and we explain and people don't agree with us, it turns out that a few months later, or a half a year later, maybe we weren't all that wrong. The President said "axis of evil" and it was amazing what happened after that in terms of the criticism that came our way, without people saying, wait a minute, we have talked about these countries repeatedly. The President came up with a clever way of capturing them all. And guess what? The North Koreans now want to talk to us. The Iraqis are trying to pretend that they're behaving better. And the President reinforced his policy that he wants to talk to the North Koreans. He believes that the multilateral approach to Iraq is correct with both improved sanctions that don't hurt the Iraqi people, and nevertheless a belief that a regime change would help the Iraqi people and would help the region. And so we will continue to take principled positions that we think are right for us and right for the issue, even when our friends, after the most thorough consultations, don't agree with us. Question: So your impression that the criticism in Europe for the "axis of evil" approach has been defused? Powell: I don't know. You tell me. I mean, I don't see it in any articles that have been written about it. And all the catastrophic things that were supposed to happen because the President used the line have not happened. In fact, I can show you some suggestions of improvement. Because he called it clearly. He said, North Korea we will meet with any time, any place, anywhere, but please don't ask him not to consider it an - a member of the "axis of evil." When a regime starves a people, when a regime is in the hands of one single individual, with no pretense that there is any kind of a representative system, when that regime puts all of its money into military expenditures to threaten a neighbor that does not threaten it, what is wrong with calling it a member of an "axis of evil"? It was another American President who used the word "evil" and caused the same kind of oh, my God, throughout various quarters. And guess what? The Soviet Union was evil, and it turns out it was an evil empire, and it was Ronald Reagan using such clear language that helped Mikhail Gorbachev say to his people, is this where we really want to be? So we realize that sometimes we Americans speak in certain ways that cause distress in certain quarters. But it is not because we were necessarily wrong. ... Question: But you can understand a person like me getting up in the morning and reading the paper, watching the TV, that myself I'm sort of getting worked up on some of this stuff I'm reading about Europe. And I'm asking myself, what is this about? Powell: Well, make sure you take a good stiff drink when you go home. ... I mean, when I was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, back in '90, '91, every day it was "whither NATO? I mean, why do we need it anymore?" ... Remember what we went through with the intermediate range nuclear force deployments. You do remember those days? ... Does Greenham Common ring a bell? Question: No. Powell: You know what I'm talking about. Greenham Common, and what was the base on the mainland? ... It was in Holland. It's where we put the GLCM, the ground launch cruise missile. And nobody knows what a GLCM is anymore. But in those days...every capital in Europe was in arms over this problem. Remember the ladies at Greenham Common? Surrounding the place and marching - don't you dare bring these missiles here. We brought the missiles there, and we survived that, and the alliance was strengthened. And what did we do about it four years later? We took the missiles out when the INF Treaty was signed. I was proud to sign that one, to be one of the negotiators in that one. And so there are always these kinds of things within the transatlantic family. And there will continue to be these kinds of arguments within the transatlantic family. I think they are probably more vivid now, because the way we talk about things... Question: Can it be the way some of them are being presented? Powell: It could be. ... I think we do have a tendency to speak in very clear terms...in the first instance, recognizing there are shades of gray in every situation, but nonetheless, let's start with a clear statement of the black and white, and we'll mix the colors and see where the gray is, which shade of gray we're going to work on. Question: You're the shades of gray department? Powell: Yes. No, this is great. This is great fun. Yes. The fact of the matter is, it is sometimes useful in order to clear the sinuses and make sure everybody is breathing deeply of the reality of the situation - I'm almost getting poetic now. ... So I think things are in very good shape, notwithstanding the churning about axis of evil or unilateralism or the occasional charges of simplicity... © 2002 The Acronym Institute. |